What Does 1 Kings 8:13 Mean?
I have surely built you a house raised high, a place set firm for your settling for the ages.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.THE KEY
The house is not merely built; it is made firm as a place for the One who takes a seat and remains.
THE MEANING
Here, building becomes a place made ready for abiding presence. The verse holds human work beside divine staying: a settled place, with abiding that reaches through the ages.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that divine presence is only a passing visit: the verse names a settled place and abiding through the ages.
THE ROOT
מָכוֹן
makon
GROWS FROM
כון
k-w-n
To establish, make firm, or prepare.
“place set firm” in this verse is makon. “Settled place” carries the sense of a place made firm, from the root kun, to establish or prepare. Paired with abiding, it presents the house as a prepared place for enduring presence.
ALSO GROWS
kun: Establish, make firm, prepare.
כּוּן
The place is described through the act of making something firm and ready.
nakhon: Firm, established, prepared.
נָכוֹן
This branch echoes the settled quality of the place named in the verse.
mekhonah: Base, stand, or foundation.
מְכוֹנָה
It extends the root’s sense of a firm supporting place.
לְשִׁבְתְּךָ
leshibtekha
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-v
To sit, settle, or dwell.
The Hebrew word for abiding comes from a root that also means sitting and settling. The verse’s abiding presence is pictured as taking a seat and remaining, rather than merely passing through.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: Sit, settle, dwell.
יָשַׁב
This is the root verb behind the verse’s word for abiding.
moshav: Seat, dwelling, settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
This branch joins the ideas of a place to sit and a place to dwell.
yoshev: One who sits or dwells; an inhabitant.
יוֹשֵׁב
It describes someone who has taken up residence, matching the verse’s enduring presence.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents divine dwelling as presence made at home among people, in a place prepared for abiding.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.This is my resting place for the ages; here I will sit, for I have longed for it.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
This is my resting place for the ages; here I will sit, for I have longed for it.“Dwell” here shares the Hebrew root yashav with “abide” in 1 Kings 8:13: to sit, settle, or dwell. The settled place becomes God’s chosen rest, revealing abiding as taking a seat and remaining.
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